Hollow

by Yolanda Olson

  I stepped out of the backseat and pulled my shirt off over my head and held it out to her. If she insisted on walking to Jeremy’s house in the dark, I didn’t want her to go without a shirt.

  “Here, take this,” I said, waiting for her to reach for it.

  “You’re not like Bobby at all, are you?” she asked glancing at me with tears glistening in her beautiful eyes.

  “No. I’m not.”

  She looked down at the shirt I was offering her and finally took it from my hand. She clenched the handle of the hammer with her thighs so she could put the shirt on. With a faint smile she stepped closer and put her hand on my arm.

  “I’ll come back to you, Adam Weaver,” she whispered. “Don’t follow me. Don’t let him follow me either. Neither of you should have to see this.”

  Before I could open my mouth to tell her that she didn’t have to go alone, Jude turned and ran into the darkness faster that anyone I had ever seen before. My shoulders slumped and I looked down at the hard, desolate heather gray gravel. I didn’t want her to go alone but it wasn’t up to me. Jude felt like she was in control of herself and obviously wanted to be alone with Jeremy.

  I opened the passenger side door of the car and got it in, slamming it in defeat behind me.

  “Come on. Let’s go back to the factory,” I said without looking at Ethan. “She’ll be back when she’s done.”

  Ethan put the car in drive as he pulled a U-turn and cursed angrily. He was angry for the things he didn’t say to Jude to stop her and he was angry for not knowing Jeremy’s intentions with her. But what he said had him the angriest, was that he still didn’t feel like the hero Jude so desperately needed.

  Fifteen

  I didn’t know where Jeremy lived in proximity to where we were, but I swore to myself that if another day passed and she didn’t come back, I’d burn the entire city down just to find her.

  It had been two fucking days since Jude had left to “take care” of her middle brother and not a word or sign of her since. Ethan didn’t seem to share my concern. If anything, he spent most of his time watching Bobby quietly while I paced a hole into the fucking ground.

  For what seemed like the billionth time, I stopped pacing for a few seconds to look at the door, and resumed once there was no sign of the anything coming from it.

  After my tenth lap, I stopped to look at the door again and stared in disbelief as it started to slowly open. With a grunt of pure force, Jude yanked it open and stepped inside.

  I dropped to my knees in relief as she pulled the door shut again. She turned around and smiled, walking toward me with the hammer still clutched firmly in her hand. She looked so immaculately clean, like she had just showered. That was when I noticed that the shirt I had given her was hanging from the waist of her shorts and it looked stained.

  “Sorry. I didn’t want to leave this behind. I think burning it will be the best way to go,” she said, dropping it on the ground next to me as she walked past toward where her brother stood over Bobby.

  I turned my head and watched as she gently put her hand on Ethan’s arm and began to say something to him, shaking her head slowly. His reaction, the way he looked like his world collapsed told me that Jude had done it. She had killed Jeremy for plotting her death behind her back.

  She rubbed her hand up and down Ethan’s arm as he used both hands to wipe the tears from his eyes. That lasted a few minutes, before he stood back up to his full height, nodded and put an arm around his little sister.

  They talked a few more minutes before Ethan nodded again, hugged her, and walked to the main entrance of the factory. He opened the door and closed it behind him. Now it was just Jude and Bobby because something told me she had forgotten I was there.

  I got to my feet, scooping up the shirt, and shoving it into my back pocket, never taking my eyes off of Jude. I had never seen a person die before, and human nature told me to try to stop it, but common sense told me not to get in the way of Jude McIntyre and her hammer.

  She stood over him still, tapping the hammer rhythmically against the side of her leg, before she raised it over her head and he flinched. Jude threw her head back and laughed.

  “You’re not as much of a big man now, are you?” she taunted loudly. “But you’re not getting off this easy. No way in fucking hell.”

  She turned to face me and waved me over. Like an obedient puppy, I jogged toward her waiting for her command.

  “Move him toward the table. I’ll find a chair. We’ll strap him to it. I would like some light for what I’m going to do,” she said with a bright smile.

  I nodded and reached down for Bobby. He tried to fight his way out of my grip, so I kicked his right knee as hard as I could. I knew I would have to drag him now, but I also knew he wouldn’t be giving Jude any trouble either.

  “Pussy,” I muttered when he cried out from the pain.

  I dropped him onto his face when we reached Jude and her chair, making her smile. Giving him a second to recover, I hoisted him up and held him still while she ran around him, through the space between us, with duct tape laughing like a happy child playing a street game of sorts.

  “Where have you been all my life?” she asked, me tossing the tape onto the table and tilting her head to the side.

  “I’ve been there, Jude. Every step of the way; we just never got introduced before now, apparently,” I replied with a laugh.

  “Sorry I almost killed you,” she said quietly.

  I raised an eyebrow. I never really expected her to say those words and to be honest, I could’ve lived without hearing them.

  I shrugged. “Shit happens, right?”

  She searched my eyes to see if I was lying to her for some reason. I couldn’t tell her that it was okay because it wasn’t. But I would accept her apology again as best as I could and that would have to be enough.

  “I told you I’d make this up to you before this was over, didn’t I?” she asked softly. “I just need your help with something first.”

  “What the hell! I’m already an accessory to kidnapping,” I replied good-naturedly. “What do you need help with?”

  She glanced at Bobby then back at me, before motioning me to follow her. We went about twenty feet away from where Bobby was sitting in his chair, crying like a pathetic bitch.

  “Remember how I told you that Bobby was the only person that ever fucked me?” she asked, chewing her lip nervously.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there were two reasons I asked Ethan to leave,” she said taking a deep breath.

  “And the first one is...?” I asked, purposely trailing off.

  “I didn’t want him to be involved with this in the first place; any of this. But once he found out what that sack of shit did to me, he’s spiraled too far into my darkness to be of any help. I don’t want to damage him anymore.”

  I nodded. “I can understand that.”

  “The second thing was. Um,” she rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably with her left hand, the hammer still clenched firmly in her right.

  I slid my hands into my pockets and waited patiently. If it was something that seemed to be as unnerving as she was starting to look, it kind of worried me.

  “I told you a couple of things would happen before this was over. I need your help one more time, Adam Weaver, then you’ll be free to go.”

  “So tell me what it is,” I replied, curiously.

  She got on her tiptoes and leaned up to whisper her request in my ear. I stepped back for a moment looking down at her in confusion.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Without hesitating she nodded, “It’ll help me in more ways than one.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll do it,” I said with a nod.

  “Thank you,” she said softly as we walked back to Bobby together for the last time.

  Sixteen

  Jude

  My hands were trembling. The hammer shook so damn much that I almost lost my grip on it. I didn’t know why this wo
uld help me, honestly. Maybe it was because he looked so damn much like Bobby and because I would be in control this time. I wasn’t twelve anymore and he wasn’t my abuser. I was twenty two and he wanted to help save whatever was left of me.

  I took a deep breath, told myself I could do this, and hopped up onto the table. Adam came over and stood next to me. I handed him the hammer which he set at the end of the table and leaned back against the metal waiting for me to give him the go ahead.

  “Did you ever notice how much you look like Adam?” I asked him. “I think the only difference really is that Adam isn’t my blood and something tells me that he’s a real man.”

  “Fuck you, you bitch,” Bobby spat out.

  “No. You’ve already done that,” I replied, shaking my head vehemently. “In a way it was kind of a twisted blessing. Do you want to know why? Because I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. Violet and Thomas dying fueled a fire inside of me I didn’t know I was capable of harnessing and seeing you again after so long ...”

  I couldn’t find the words to tell him everything I wanted to say in that moment. Seeing Cousin Bobby again after all the years of hiding from him, hiding from the world, was a dangerous release of the demons that I had worked so hard to keep at bay.

  I reached over and took one of Adam’s hands, uncurling his arms from his chest and he glanced down at me.

  “Adam is a blessing in disguise. One that I hated at first and tried to kill in your place, but there’s something about him now that sings to my dark soul. So I want you to watch how and learn what it’s like to be a real man. Not like you’ll ever leave here, but still. This will help me as much as it will fuck with your head,” I said giving Bobby a deadly glare.

  “Why don’t you just fucking kill me?” he asked angrily.

  “Because it wouldn’t be any fun to let you have the easy way out,” I replied with a grim smile as I pulled Adam toward me.

  He blocked Bobby’s view of me but I think it was pretty obvious what was going to happen. I put my hands on his chest and he leaned down, planting his fists on either side of me, looking into my eyes.

  “Are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do?” he asked me quietly.

  “No, I don’t want to do this; I need too,” I replied honestly.

  “Let me guess? You’re gonna take a ride on that whore and I’m supposed to get jealous? Don’t forget something; I fucked her first,” Bobby said with a laugh.

  Adam grabbed the hammer faster than a flash of lightning blazing through the night sky and turned toward Bobby trembling from the rage.

  “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t fucking bash your brains in right now,” he asked through grit teeth.

  “Ignore him!” I said loudly. “That’s what he wants; the easy way out. That’s all he’s ever been used too.”

  Adam’s body had tightened in his rage and his breathing had quickened. In essence, he was still a stranger to me and yet he seemed to be more on my side than my own family. What was left of them anyway.

  “The hammer, Adam,” I said softly, holding my hand out. He kept his fury focused on Bobby for a few seconds longer, before he grunted and turned toward me.

  Leaning forward, I took the hammer from him after a small game of tug of war to get it. I tossed it to the side and pulled him toward me, looking up into his Bobby green eyes and winced a little. The purplish black color of his still swollen eye was making me regret what Ethan had done to him.

  “Can’t do it, can you?” he asked with a soft chuckle.

  “Only if I don’t think about it, now kiss me before I lose my nerve,” I replied with a nervous giggle.

  That was all Adam needed to hear. He took my face gently in his hands and looked into my eyes, before leaning down and pressing his lips gently against mine. At first, it was just a whisper of a kiss and it send a jolt through me, but when he used his tongue to part my lips, I felt my entire body catch fire.

  But when he pulled away, I found myself starting to tremble for a different reason. I couldn’t do it and I didn’t know how to tell him.

  Adam pulled away from me and chuckled softly, “I won’t make you do this Jude. You’re not ready for this and I don’t think it’s the right time anyway. Do what you’re here to do; I’m not going anywhere.”

  Bobby started to laugh, almost as if to punctuate what Adam was saying. Almost as if to mock the fact that he had been the only man I had been with and probably ever would be. I hated him for it. I hated him for the laughter and I hated him for still being alive.

  I grabbed the hammer in a rage and pushed Adam away.

  “Shut up!” I screamed, charging Bobby. “Shut up! Shut up!”

  In a blind rage, I began to swing the hammer. Over and over, each blow punctuated with me screaming shut up louder and louder, over and over.

  The laughter gave way to screams, grunts, gurgling, and then there was silence. Adam put his hands on me and I dropped the hammer. It made a wet thud as it hit the ground and echoed slightly throughout the factory.

  “What?” I asked Adam in a haze. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s over, Jude,” he said gently as he led me away from what was left of Bobby, careful to shield my eyes away from what I had just done. I felt his hands on the sides of my face as he tried to wipe away any of the blood that had landed on me. Adam was protecting me from the massacre.

  I was thankful for that because I didn’t want to see what I had done. The sounds alone would be enough to haunt my dreams and make them into permanent nightmares.

  Not the sounds of Bobby’s skull being crushed through sickening, wet blows. No. It would be the sounds of my own tortured screaming. The sounds of twelve year old Jude finally killing her own personal boogeyman.

  Seventeen

  Ethan

  I had been sitting in front of Jeremy’s house for the past two hours wondering if I should go in and see if there was anything left of him. It bothered me that I didn’t get the chance to talk to Jeremy and ask him why. That was all I wanted to know, was why? Why would he do this to Jude when she had been shunned and betrayed so many times already in her life?

  For some reason, one of Violet and Thomas’ arguments came back to me. Violet was pregnant with Jude, and Thomas was asking her why he tricked her into the pregnancy. He said she told him that she was on birth control, but Violet told him that he knew that was against her beliefs. She told him that he was lying by accusing her of being a sinner who would want to stop the work of her God by procreating as it was written.

  I grunted and pushed the car door open. I can’t remember a time when Violet didn’t end her religious tirades with “as it was written.” She took her faith and corrupted it to the point where I doubted if she knew reality from fantasy anymore.

  I slammed the door behind me as I walked up the steps to Jeremy’s front door, their argument still playing itself out in my mind. Thomas snapped when Violet delivered her famous line and told her that he was leaving her. He told her that he would always make sure that we were provided for, but he wouldn’t live in the same house as someone who was so hell-bent on keeping his children from reality.

  Ever since that moment Violet resented Jude. She would lock herself in her room at night screaming and praying for her God to take her baby away.

  Sick bitch, I thought angrily as I searched for the keys to Jeremy’s front door on my keyring. I knew in that moment that not only would I have to be the best big brother I could be to both Jude and Jeremy, but that I would have to make sure to love more than I could love anything else. She was going to need it more than him and he would and did understand.

  At least I thought he did.

  I put the key in the lock and turned it until I heard the opening click. My hand rested on the doorknob and I closed my eyes for a moment, praying that whatever I found wouldn’t turn me into Thomas. That I wouldn’t walk away from Jude the way he had from Violet and the rest of us. She needed me too much for me to do that to her.

>   I pushed the door open and stepped inside, pulling it firmly closed behind me. The place was a fucking mess. Lamps were on their sides, the coffee table was on its back, and even the couch cushions seemed to have taken the brunt of Jude’s rage or Jeremy’s struggle to defend himself.

  “Jeremy?” I called out in a shaky voice. I didn’t expect a reply, not when I found everything as it was, and not after seeing the blood stained shirt that Jude had given back to Adam.

  The silence hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. Part of me wanted an answer desperately and part of me was wrestling with my emotions on him being dead.

  “Yeah. In the bathroom,” a weak voice called out.

  I moved quickly, kicking the over turned chairs and debris out of my way. Was it actually possible or was my mind playing terrible tricks on me? The door to the bathroom was cracked slightly and I pushed it open slowly worried about having some kind of psychotic break at seeing Jeremy.

  He was alive. Jude hadn’t killed him; he was alive and it caused tears to spring to my eyes. Rage and joy filled me simultaneously and I fought the typhoon of feelings invading me at the moment. I had to focus on my brother being alive and that my sister hadn’t killed him.

  Jeremy was sitting on the floor in between the toilet and the bathtub. He had blood pouring out of his mouth and looked tired and in pain.

  “How the fuck are you still alive?” I blurted out in disbelief.

  “I don’t know,” he replied wincing. “She was crazy when she got here, but she told me that killing me wouldn’t fix anything. She told me that letting me live with the shame of what I had done would be good enough for her.”

  His burnt orange colored shirt had blood stains all over it. I walked over and sat on the floor in front of him and had to push one of his teeth out of the way.

  “Why did you do it?” I asked him softly.

  “I didn’t know what else to do! I didn’t know how else to help her, Ethan! You’ve got to believe me. Jude has always been the damaged one and I thought that maybe if she wasn’t around anymore it would finally ease her fucking pain.”